Wednesday, April 30, 2008
heavy duty stapler -- again
I know I didn't offer a very good explanation last year, but I hope that post was based on a discussion we had in person.
Regardless, the deal is that we (we being Michael and Jenna) are not inclined to provide another heavy-duty stapler for public use. The one we bought last year, that we couldn't keep in working order for more than five minutes at a time, cost $200. The expense wouldn't be such a big deal if the thing weren't a lemon, but unfortunately, it was, as all of its kind seem to be.
In lieu of giant staples, we are willing to provide giant paper clips, binder clips, and butterfly clips.
There's also a related discussion in the suggestion book (or the "book of no" as I'm calling it in my head) if you're interested.
Regardless, the deal is that we (we being Michael and Jenna) are not inclined to provide another heavy-duty stapler for public use. The one we bought last year, that we couldn't keep in working order for more than five minutes at a time, cost $200. The expense wouldn't be such a big deal if the thing weren't a lemon, but unfortunately, it was, as all of its kind seem to be.
In lieu of giant staples, we are willing to provide giant paper clips, binder clips, and butterfly clips.
There's also a related discussion in the suggestion book (or the "book of no" as I'm calling it in my head) if you're interested.
Labels: equipment
new e-resources April 2008
Attic Grave Reliefs of the Late 5th and the 4th Century BC
Database of images, texts, and information about this important source for the study of ancient Greece.
Census of Antique Art and Architecure Known to the Renaissance
Database of texts and images which documents the links between the art and architecture of classical antiquity and the Renaissance. The "Census" includes drawings, sketches, treatises etc. as recorded in Renaissance documents illustrating the knowledge and study of classical antiquity by Renaissance artists.
Historical Black Newspapers
Full text and full-image articles from African American newspapers: Atlanta Daily World, Los Angeles Sentinel, New York Amsterdam News, Pittsburgh Courier, and The Chicago Defender.
Literature Criticism Online
Database of encyclopedias of literary criticism: Contemporary Literary Criticism, Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, Literature Criticism from 1400–1800, Shakespearean Criticism, Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, Poetry Criticism, Short Story Criticism, Drama Criticism, Children's Literature Review.
Peace Research Abstracts
Includes bibliographic records covering essential areas related to peace research, including conflict resolution, international affairs, peace psychology, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline. Records are selected from many of the top titles within the discipline, including International Journal of Peace Studies, International Journal on World Peace, and Conflict Management & Peace Science. Coverage from 1964.
Scriptores Possessoresque: Database of Mediaeval Manuscripts' Scribes and Owners
Provides information on owners and writers of medieval manuscripts, including: name; short biography with city of origin and life dates (as available); libraries holding manuscript(s); as well as short references to secondary literature. Coverage: 4th to 20th century.
TBRC Digital Library
Contains multiple works on Tibetan literature which have been assembled specifically to be incorporated into institutional libraries. Each collection comprises roughly 1000 volumes from the TBRC holdings selected by E. Gene Smith, Executive Director of the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center. Within each Core Text Collection, each work is provided in both Adobe Acrobat PDF and TIFF formats.
Travel and Tourism Analyst
Contains reports on various areas of the travel and tourism industry. You must create a free registration to view the reports.
Urban Studies Abstracts
Includes bibliographic records covering essential areas related to urban studies, including urban affairs, community development, urban history, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline. Records are selected from many of the top titles within the discipline, including Journal of Urban Affairs, Urban Studies, and Canadian Journal of Urban Research.
Database of images, texts, and information about this important source for the study of ancient Greece.
Census of Antique Art and Architecure Known to the Renaissance
Database of texts and images which documents the links between the art and architecture of classical antiquity and the Renaissance. The "Census" includes drawings, sketches, treatises etc. as recorded in Renaissance documents illustrating the knowledge and study of classical antiquity by Renaissance artists.
Historical Black Newspapers
Full text and full-image articles from African American newspapers: Atlanta Daily World, Los Angeles Sentinel, New York Amsterdam News, Pittsburgh Courier, and The Chicago Defender.
Literature Criticism Online
Database of encyclopedias of literary criticism: Contemporary Literary Criticism, Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, Literature Criticism from 1400–1800, Shakespearean Criticism, Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, Poetry Criticism, Short Story Criticism, Drama Criticism, Children's Literature Review.
Peace Research Abstracts
Includes bibliographic records covering essential areas related to peace research, including conflict resolution, international affairs, peace psychology, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline. Records are selected from many of the top titles within the discipline, including International Journal of Peace Studies, International Journal on World Peace, and Conflict Management & Peace Science. Coverage from 1964.
Scriptores Possessoresque: Database of Mediaeval Manuscripts' Scribes and Owners
Provides information on owners and writers of medieval manuscripts, including: name; short biography with city of origin and life dates (as available); libraries holding manuscript(s); as well as short references to secondary literature. Coverage: 4th to 20th century.
TBRC Digital Library
Contains multiple works on Tibetan literature which have been assembled specifically to be incorporated into institutional libraries. Each collection comprises roughly 1000 volumes from the TBRC holdings selected by E. Gene Smith, Executive Director of the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center. Within each Core Text Collection, each work is provided in both Adobe Acrobat PDF and TIFF formats.
Travel and Tourism Analyst
Contains reports on various areas of the travel and tourism industry. You must create a free registration to view the reports.
Urban Studies Abstracts
Includes bibliographic records covering essential areas related to urban studies, including urban affairs, community development, urban history, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline. Records are selected from many of the top titles within the discipline, including Journal of Urban Affairs, Urban Studies, and Canadian Journal of Urban Research.
Labels: databases
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
second floor wireless down
The wireless in the library is wonky again. AT is working on it.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Location: Lehman
There is a tally sheet at the reference desk to count the number of times a patron comes in asking for a Lehman book here.
Labels: CLIO location guide
Friday, April 25, 2008
Final Examination Blackout Period
The final examination blackout period begins tomorrow, Saturday, April 26 and ends on Friday, May 16. During this time staff in the Library Information Office will not be accepting Metro referrals, and will only be issuing temporary reader cards to students, staff and faculty of Shares institutions.
Access to the rare book collections, and government documents will not be affected by the final examination access restrictions.
Access to the rare book collections, and government documents will not be affected by the final examination access restrictions.
Labels: CUL, final exams, shares
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Wireless Update
As of this morning, the wireless connection on the 2nd floor seems to be working fine. I got a "strong" signal on my laptop.
Labels: wireless
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
wireless--not so much
The wireless network that normally serves the 2nd floor of the library seems to be down. I reported it to the help desk around 4:15pm on Wednesday 4/16. I'm not sure they can or will move on this until a student also reports the problem or someone else with the time and the will to help help troubleshoot gets involved.
Think chair
Our new reference desk chair has arrived. You'll notice that just about every part of it moves and adjusts. I've left the card that shows you how to make the adjustments on the chair itself, but in case it doesn't last there, you can check out the printable, interactive, and flash user guides.
Friday, April 11, 2008
CUL site slowness
As you know, we've all been experiencing sporadic slowness in our various web-based systems over the last week to ten days. This has been reported to CUIT and was recently escalated in priority. We hope for near-term improvements or at least better information about the what the problem is and what CUIT's plan for addressing it will be.
from Stephen Paul Davis via CUL Notes
from Stephen Paul Davis via CUL Notes
Labels: CUIT
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
reference computer keyboard
The wireless keyboard needs new batteries, which Anna ordered today. I put it in the locked reference desk cabinet for now.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
HISTORY LAB with John Tofanelli
From CUL Notes:
Greetings! The Committee for Columbia Library and Information Professionals (formerly RCL) would like to invite you to our next CCLIP Talk (formerly Brownbag presentations). We thought a new name for the series would compliment (sic) the committee’s new name, as well as clear up some confusion about the events scheduled start times. CCLIP Talks do not happen strictly at lunch time, but are scheduled at staggered times throughout the day to ensure more people with varied schedules have a chance to attend.
Our next CCLIP Talk will be on Tuesday, April 8th from 11am to noon in Butler 523. We hope to see you there! Light refreshments will be served.
HISTORY LAB:
AN EMERGING MODEL FOR
DISCIPLINE-BASED LIBRARY INSTRUCTION
Speaker: John Tofanelli
History Lab has been offered since Spring 2007 as a seven-week, two-point course for instructing Columbia history majors in the basics of library research. The course consists of four sessions taught by librarians, bookended by an introductory session and concluding sessions taught by a History Department faculty member or graduate preceptor. In Spring 08, as in Fall 07, three sections of roughly fifteen students each have been enrolled in History Lab. Seven librarians have been responsible for teaching the Spring 08 sessions.
I have served as the primary liaison between the History Department and the Libraries in the development and coordination of History Lab. I invite you to attend a session in which I will give a brief presentation on the development of History Lab and a demonstration of the History Lab Courseworks site. History Lab has been generally successful. I hope that librarians who may be thinking about new possibilities for discipline-oriented library instruction might learn from one or another aspect of it.
Please consider attending. I look forward to your questions.
For an advance glimpse of the current History Lab Courseworks site: simply select Admin Access in Courseworks; search by Course Title: History Lab ; and choose one of the 2008 sections. (The syllabus content is the same for each.)
Greetings! The Committee for Columbia Library and Information Professionals (formerly RCL) would like to invite you to our next CCLIP Talk (formerly Brownbag presentations). We thought a new name for the series would compliment (sic) the committee’s new name, as well as clear up some confusion about the events scheduled start times. CCLIP Talks do not happen strictly at lunch time, but are scheduled at staggered times throughout the day to ensure more people with varied schedules have a chance to attend.
Our next CCLIP Talk will be on Tuesday, April 8th from 11am to noon in Butler 523. We hope to see you there! Light refreshments will be served.
HISTORY LAB:
AN EMERGING MODEL FOR
DISCIPLINE-BASED LIBRARY INSTRUCTION
Speaker: John Tofanelli
History Lab has been offered since Spring 2007 as a seven-week, two-point course for instructing Columbia history majors in the basics of library research. The course consists of four sessions taught by librarians, bookended by an introductory session and concluding sessions taught by a History Department faculty member or graduate preceptor. In Spring 08, as in Fall 07, three sections of roughly fifteen students each have been enrolled in History Lab. Seven librarians have been responsible for teaching the Spring 08 sessions.
I have served as the primary liaison between the History Department and the Libraries in the development and coordination of History Lab. I invite you to attend a session in which I will give a brief presentation on the development of History Lab and a demonstration of the History Lab Courseworks site. History Lab has been generally successful. I hope that librarians who may be thinking about new possibilities for discipline-oriented library instruction might learn from one or another aspect of it.
Please consider attending. I look forward to your questions.
For an advance glimpse of the current History Lab Courseworks site: simply select Admin Access in Courseworks; search by Course Title: History Lab ; and choose one of the 2008 sections. (The syllabus content is the same for each.)
Labels: CUL, demonstrations, history, instruction, research
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
New JSTOR interface (for reals this time)
We are excited to announce that the new JSTOR platform will be launched on Friday, April 4. The behind-the-scenes process for switching from the existing JSTOR to the new platform will begin around 7:00 a.m. EST. We will be making changes throughout the day, but the vast majority of users should experience no interruption or downtime. If you do have any difficulties, though, please contact support@jstor.org
A document describing features of the new platform is included in the JSTOR Sandbox
We would like to thank all of you for your comments over the past few months and your patience more recently as we performed additional testing. As always, your comments have proven to be invaluable. We look forward to your ongoing feedback as we continue adding enhancements and
new content.
Sincerely,
JSTOR User Services
Webinars
The following training webinars are led by JSTOR User Services staff. A phone and a computer with online access are required. To register, follow a link in the list below.
Highlights of the New JSTOR Interface
Wednesday, April 16, 2008 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM EDT
Using the JSTOR Interface
Thursday, April 17, 2008 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM EDT
Highlights of the New JSTOR Interface
Tuesday, April 22, 2008 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM EDT
Highlights of the New JSTOR Interface
Wednesday, April 23, 2008 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM EDT
Using the JSTOR Interface
Tuesday, April 29, 2008 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM EDT
Highlights of the New JSTOR Interface
Wednesday, April 30, 2008 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM EDT
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
LexisNexis: Changes to Financial Times
From a LexisNexis discussion list:
The Financial Times (FT) has modified its contract with LexisNexis, and as you may have already heard, this has resulted in the removal of The Financial Times (FT) for most LexisNexis commercial customers. Please be assured that FT continues to be available to you and your patrons in LexisNexis Academic. However, the new contractual requirements have had some important effects on LexisNexis Academic, which are detailed below.
SEARCHING
FT has been removed from group sources. This means that you will no longer get hits from FT when running search in group sources such as “News (All),” and “UK Newspaper Stories.” FT and FT Online will continue to be available as single sources that can be searched using the Power Search form. To make searching of this important resource easier, we will be updating both the News and Power Search forms to offer FT as an option in the dropdown source selection
SOURCE SELECTION
Like all single sources, FT can be accessed through the source directory and searched in the Power Search form. To locate the Financial Times and the Financial Times Online, go to the Sources tab and enter “Financial Times” in the keyword search. The names of these sources have been changed to “Financial Times (London) Archive” and “Financial Times Online Archive.” See the next section for an explanation of this.
24 HOUR EMBARGO
The “Archive” designation in the new source names does not mean that the files are no longer updating or under a lengthy embargo. The Financial Times offers a premium service, not available in LexisNexis Academic, which updates multiple times during the day. The archive service available to us is updated the next day, with the practical effect of a 24-hour embargo on this source. The full backfile continues to be available.
SOURCE ID NUMBERS
Those who use LexisNexis CSI numbers to provide direct links to the Financial Times sources or to specific articles in these sources will have to update their CSIs as shown below. This will affect OpenURL linkers and e-Journals services, and we are sharing this information with our contacts at the vendors who provide these services. The A-Z List that provides CSIs for all titles in LexisNexis Academic is updated every month, and the April update is scheduled to be posted this week with the new CSIs.
CSI 293847 for Financial Times (London) Archive
CSI 305962 for Financial Times Online Archive
The Financial Times (FT) has modified its contract with LexisNexis, and as you may have already heard, this has resulted in the removal of The Financial Times (FT) for most LexisNexis commercial customers. Please be assured that FT continues to be available to you and your patrons in LexisNexis Academic. However, the new contractual requirements have had some important effects on LexisNexis Academic, which are detailed below.
SEARCHING
FT has been removed from group sources. This means that you will no longer get hits from FT when running search in group sources such as “News (All),” and “UK Newspaper Stories.” FT and FT Online will continue to be available as single sources that can be searched using the Power Search form. To make searching of this important resource easier, we will be updating both the News and Power Search forms to offer FT as an option in the dropdown source selection
SOURCE SELECTION
Like all single sources, FT can be accessed through the source directory and searched in the Power Search form. To locate the Financial Times and the Financial Times Online, go to the Sources tab and enter “Financial Times” in the keyword search. The names of these sources have been changed to “Financial Times (London) Archive” and “Financial Times Online Archive.” See the next section for an explanation of this.
24 HOUR EMBARGO
The “Archive” designation in the new source names does not mean that the files are no longer updating or under a lengthy embargo. The Financial Times offers a premium service, not available in LexisNexis Academic, which updates multiple times during the day. The archive service available to us is updated the next day, with the practical effect of a 24-hour embargo on this source. The full backfile continues to be available.
SOURCE ID NUMBERS
Those who use LexisNexis CSI numbers to provide direct links to the Financial Times sources or to specific articles in these sources will have to update their CSIs as shown below. This will affect OpenURL linkers and e-Journals services, and we are sharing this information with our contacts at the vendors who provide these services. The A-Z List that provides CSIs for all titles in LexisNexis Academic is updated every month, and the April update is scheduled to be posted this week with the new CSIs.
CSI 293847 for Financial Times (London) Archive
CSI 305962 for Financial Times Online Archive
Labels: databases
